In 1956, many countries around the world celebrated 2,500 years of the Buddha’s Parinirvana, or his final departure from the world. Sri Lanka and many Southeast Asian countries believe that this event took place in 544 BC. Hence, in writings, people assume that the Buddha lived about 2,500 years ago. But is that really so? Is that fact or belief? Scholars have been debating this for the past 100 years, and no one has come out the wiser.

From a traditional point of view, most of our Buddhist knowledge is beholden to European scholarship on Buddhism. In the 19th century, the Europeans assumed that Pali scriptures from Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia are far more authentic than Sanskrit scriptures because they contain relatively fewer fantastic and mythological elements.